The Emperor’s Cool Clothes is a cool new take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. In it, a penguin who has always wanted to be cool and his counselors, who are very proud of how cool they are, are taken in by a couple of tricksters. The idea… Continue reading
Building a map with Google Maps is not difficult. You can find step by step instructions at Build a Custom Interactive Map. The new Maps Engine Lite, however, is even easier. Here we’re building a simple map of Africa. Get started by signing in to Google Maps. You’ll see… Continue reading
Learn about diamonds — math, science, art, and history connections. Continue reading
Those of us who teach Shakespeare can easily be overwhelmed by the — literally — millions of online resources on Shakespeare. You don’t have to spend hours clicking around looking for the best ones, because we already did it for you. First, the plays: The Complete Works: all the words… Continue reading
In studying exploration, we tend to focus on the conquistadors of Spain and the great explorers of Italy: Columbus, Magellan, Da Gama, Vespucchi, and Cortez. When we’re thinking of exploration in North America, though, we should remember the French explorers. There were French explorers during the Great Age of… Continue reading
Rush for the Gold: Mystery at the Olympics by John Feinstein is a young adult novel set at the London Olympics and the run-up to them. The main character, Susan Carol Anderson, is a competitive swimmer. She learns firsthand, as she prepares for the competition, that it’s easy for a… Continue reading
Combine research, art, and writing to create a great classroom project that can be anything from a quick classroom activity to an organizing system for a major science unit. The basic idea is to have each student create a labeled picture that shares information, then put them all together into… Continue reading
At WordCamp in Kansas City this month I heard a speaker who suggested using a WordPress website for quick in-class assessment. When you’re giving a lecture or explaining a concept, you can have everyone logged into the class website, have them answer quick questions online, and thus make sure that… Continue reading
I’m a teacher, but I’m also a parent, and I’ve occasionally had disagreements with my kids’ teachers. Once a teacher complained to me about my daughter’s resistance to doing routine stuff like copying out spelling words repeatedly. “Most of our lives as adults,” she said to me, “consist of… Continue reading
Math and superheroes go together like Batman and Robin. If you’re using a superhero theme for your classroom, take advantage of that. Math class? Make it your ongoing theme. There’s a ready-made bulletin board set: Math Superheroes Bulletin Board Set has 8 lively posters with captions like, “Probability woman says there’s… Continue reading
